The Great Big Treasury of Rent One Shots
by Sonata Rapp
Summary: I love one shots. So i'm making a collection of all the ones I write. Pairs will change and all characters will be featured. This time, a song written by Mark to display April's life and times.
1. Ever Been in Love?

"Hey Roger?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever been in love?"

"What?"

"Have you ever been in love?"

"Uh, sure?"

"I'm serious man. Have you ever really loved someone?"

"My mother."

"Other than family."

"I guess."

"Was it real love?"

"Mark, what's with the twenty questions dude?"

"Just curious. You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"No, I'll answer. Yes I've been in love. And yes, it was real."

"What did it feel like?"

"Huh?"

"Being in love, what did it feel like?"

"Well, it's awkward I guess. Whenever I see that person my heart speeds up, my palms get sweaty, and all I can think about is kissing him."

"HIM?"

"Yeah, him. Was this a bad time to mention that I like boys?"

"No, it's good to know I guess."

"Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"Why all the questions?"

"Like I said. I'm just curious."

"Uh-huh. Mark?"

"What?"

"I love you too."


	2. How Roger Got His Hair

How Roger Got His Hair 

Roger stood in the mirror of the loft's tiny bathroom and brushed his dark golden curls. They were now so long that they brushed his shoulders gracefully. It was strange; the ex-rockstar had never liked longer hair. Said that it made a musician look like a poser if they had too much hair. Then _she_ came along…

_"Roger!" Mark called out through the loft. It was nearly empty so his call echoed through it. "Roger?"_

_A door opened and a spiky blond head poked out. "Mark do you have any fucking idea what time it is?" Roger snapped._

_"Uh, yeah. It's two in the afternoon. Normal people are out and about. Come on man, you promised that you were going to hang out with Maureen and me today. She's been living here for three weeks and you've barely spoken to her." Mark said back._

_It was true. Roger kept ridiculous hours and the only time he interacted with his best friend's new girlfriend was when they were vying for the bathroom. Mark had convinced him that he had to do something with them sometime, so they decided on a late lunch. _

_"Fine." The musician huffed. "Give me five minutes to get ready."_

_Maureen gave him a disgusted look from the couch. "What?" Roger asked. "I showered last night."_

_She shook her head. "If you had more hair then it would take you longer to get ready." Maureen asserted._

_"Please." Roger scoffed. "I could have hair to my ass and still be ready in five minutes flat." _

_Maureen shook her head harder, her own hair, streaked through with purple, catching the sunlight. "No. Your hair is your crowning glory Roger. The care of it should come before almost everything else. When someone checks you out they start at the top. And what's at the top Pookie?" she looked at Mark._

_"Um, the hair?" he guessed._

_"Exactly." Maureen said._

_Roger rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Like I said, no matter how much hair I have I can still be ready in five minutes flat."_

_"Wanna bet?" Maureen asked._

_"Not everyone is as obsessed with their appearance as you are Mo." Roger retorted and Mark through him an incredulous look. This, coming from the guy who took three hours doing his eyeliner before a show. "What do I get if I win?"_

_Maureen looked around. "I'll buy groceries and clean the bathroom for a month." She suggested._

_Roger raised his eyebrows. "Hefty stakes. And if you win?" _

_"You let me teach you all about proper hair care. No more of this 'I'll just run my fingers through it shit."_

_"Deal." Roger accepted. He crossed the room to shake Maureen's hand. _

_Mark gave him a bemused look. "How exactly do you plan to grow this hair to your ass?"_

_Roger shrugged. "My hair grows like crazy. I have to cut it like every week to keep it this short."_

_Those cuttings stopped that day. By the time Maureen had been living with them for two months Roger's hair was brushing his shoulders. It had been so long since he'd had it longer that Roger had forgotten how curly his hair was, and how much he loved the feel of it against the back of his neck when he walked._

_The bet wasn't put to the test until one day when Collins came back from MIT for fall break. He and Mark were supposed to meet him at the Life Café at five. Roger had taken a nap and didn't wake up until 4:52._

_"No problem." He thought. He was already dressed, he could be out the door and at the Life by 5:02, and Collins was always late anyway. Roger went into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. He'd just run his fingers through his hair…_

_"I-I can't do it." Roger whispered to himself. His hair was tousled from sleep and sticking up all over the place. He looked around frantically and found a hairbrush belonging to Maureen lying by the sink. Roger grabbed it and attacked his hair._

_He brushed and teased until finally his hair lay in a gleaming golden mass. Roger sighed happily and walked out into the main room of the loft. He checked the clock; sure that he still wasn't that late. 6:12, the digital clock read. The musician sighed, grabbed his jacket and headed out the door._

_When he arrived at the café, everyone looked up expectantly. "Way to be on time to welcome me back man." Collins quipped. "Where were you?"_

_"Probably sleeping." Mark snickered._

_Only Maureen said nothing. She smiled in approval at the state of Roger's hair. "So when do you want to go shopping, my pupil?" she asked cackling maniacally. _

_From that day forward Roger only trimmed his hair about half an inch or so and he went shopping for hair care products with Maureen once a week when funds allowed. _

_"Thanks a lot Mo." Mark said one day. "Now I never get to use the bathroom." _

_Maureen eyed her boyfriend's head. "You know Pookie, your hair could use some work too…" _

A/N: I love Roger/Adam and I love him with longer hair. It's about 4:30 am here and I was struck by the sudden compulsion to write. Unfortunately it wasn't the compulsion to write chapters for my other stories. I need ideas people!!! Writer's block is a bitch.


	3. Mark the Albino Reindeer

Mark the Albino Reindeer 

_Sir I want to buy these shoes, for my mama please. It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size. Could you hurry sir? Daddy say's there's not much time. You see, she's been sick for quite a while, and I know these shoes will make her smile, and I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight._

Roger scowled at the radio and turned it off in disgust. "Why is everything that comes on the radio these days complete fucking crap?"

"It's Christmas music Roger." Esme said from the couch. "It's supposed to be crap." Mark's new girlfriend was a hardcore Wiccan and she disliked everything about Christmas, except getting presents. She _was_ Maureen's cousin after all.

"But I mean come on. _Christmas Shoes?_ That's corny even by sucky Christmas music standards."

Collins rolled his eyes. "It's sentimental Rog." He explained. "The song is about love and selflessness. The boy is out there in the cold using all the money that he has to try to repay his mother for all the shit she's done for him. The narrator is touched by that love and saddened by the lack of it in his life, so he gives the kid the money." Roger and Esme just stared at the professor. "Angel loved that song." He said and went back to his book.

"Well all that aside, I could still write a better Christmas song than that." Roger asserted.

"Oh yeah, you're going to come out of your slump to create a brilliant piece of music. I can just see it now." Esme joked.

"I will!" Roger replied indignantly. "I just need some inspiration. My muse needs to walk through the door." No sooner had he said this than Mark pushed the heavy door to the loft open and came in.

Esme exploded in laughter and Collins joined her. "Uh, hey guys." Mark greeted. "What's going on?"

"Hold still Mark, you're officially my muse." Roger responded.

"Uh…okay?" the filmmaker agreed, confused. Roger stared at him for twenty seconds and then jumped up from his seat in the window, grabbed his guitar and ran into his room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Mark came to sit beside his girlfriend. "Do I even want to know?" he asked.

"Probably not." Collins replied.

Four hours passed before Roger emerged from his room. He had a brilliant smile on his face and was clutching his notebook and guitar tightly.

"My friends," He began. "I bring you non sucky Christmas music. I've labored for hours and now I am ready to share my masterpiece." He sat down on the steel table and strummed a chord on his guitar. "I give you 'Mark," Roger paused for effect. "the Albino Reindeer."

Mark blushed and groaned as Esme and Collins roared with laughter again. "Is this really necessary?" Mark asked.

"Fuck yeah it is." Collins answered him. "Play it Roger."

Roger strummed another chord and cleared his throat. "Mark the albino reindeer," he sang. "Had a quite unhealthy glow. Eyes that were blue as oceans, and skin that was white as snow. All of the other bohos couldn't help but call him names. Still we always let poor Marky, film us and play drinking games. Then one freezing Christmas Eve, Roger came to say, "Marky with your skin so white, won't you light our loft tonight? Then how the bohos loved him, as they shouted out with glee. Mark the Albino Reindeer; you'll go down in history."

The room was silent for a moment then Collins and Esme burst into thunderous applause. "That was pretty good Roger." Esme told the musician. "I mean you basically just rewrote a classic song made to celebrate a season in honor of an oppressive religious system, but I liked it nonetheless."

"Thank you, thank you." Roger said and took a bow. They all turned to look at Mark.

"You know Roger, just because that was the first song you've written in years I'm not going to be upset." The filmmaker said, though his face was flushed crimson.

"Maybe I should change the title to Marky the Red-faced Reindeer." Roger joked and then ran for his life as Mark chased him around the loft.


	4. Thrash Unreal

Thrash Unreal

Roger opened his eyes slowly, trying to remember what exactly had caused him to wake up at the ungodly hour of one in the afternoon. He'd just decided to forget about it and go back to sleep when he heard his roommate and best friend utter a curse from the other room. Now that he thought about it, Mark was the reason he had woken up. The filmmaker had been singing outside his door, probably on his way to make coffee.

Mark swore again and Roger gave up on sleep. He swung out from under the covers of his bed and padded to the door. There was no need to get dressed. Ever since April had died and Roger had begun and ended his withdrawal, he never left the loft. So he sat around in a pair of plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt all the time. Mark had long since given up on making him war decent clothes.

When Roger entered the loft's main room, he saw Mark sitting on the couch with a notebook on his lap and a pencil in his hand. Seeing this made Roger glance over at his guitar, sitting covered in dust. He sighed and came over to sit beside his friend.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked. Mark shrugged and Roger frowned and punched him lightly in the shoulder. "Don't do that." He said. "Tell me what you're doing."

Mark winced. "You'll get mad." He responded. "Really mad."

Roger rolled his eyes and held out his hand for the notebook. Mark sighed and gave it to him. The ex-rocker read for a minute and then looked up at the bespectacled blond beside him. "This is about April, isn't it?" he asked.

Mark nodded. "Yeah. It's supposed to be a song. I started it when I first found out about her and the drugs. Then when everything happened with her…and with you," he shrugged again. "I sort of forgot about it. I've been working on it for the past few days and I just finished it." The filmmaker waited for his friend to blow up at him.

To his surprise Roger just nodded. "Could you sing it for me?" he asked.

Mark took the notebook back and nodded as well. He cleared his throat a few times. "Uh…just know that my voice isn't nearly as good as yours." Roger rolled his eyes and Mark took a deep breath.

"_If she wants to dance and drink all night, well there's no one that can stop her. _

_She's going till the house lights come up or her stomach spills onto the floor. _

_This night is gonna end, when we're damn well ready for it to be over. _

_Worked all week long now the music is playing on our time. _

_Yeah we do what we do to get by and we need a release._

_No mother ever dreams that her daughter's gonna grow up to be a junkie._

_No mother ever dreams that her daughter's gonna grow up to sleep alone."_

Mark stopped singing and looked over at Roger. He had his eyes closed, no doubt remembering the times he'd spent with April. "Keep going." He murmured.

"_Now she's been messing with the wrong guys, she got messed on the wrong drugs_

_Sometimes her body takes her places that she didn't really plan on going _

_When people see the track marks on her arms, she knows what they're thinking_

_She keeps on working at that little job as if her high school education gave her any other options_

_You know they don't know nothing about redemption_

_They don't know nothing about, recovery_

_Some people just aren't the type for marriage and family"_

Roger chuckled there. April had hated kids. At one point she told him that if he got her pregnant then she'd kill him.

"_No mother ever dreams that her daughter's gonna grow up to be a junkie._

_No mother ever dreams that her daughter's gonna grow up to die alone._

_No mother ever dreams that her daughter's gonna grow up to be a junkie._

_No mother ever dreams that her daughter's gonna grow up to die alone._

_And if she had the chance to do it over again, _

_I bet she wouldn't change anything for the world."_

Mark finished the song and looked at Roger. His eyes were still closed, but he looked happy. "You're right," he said. "She probably wouldn't change anything." He sighed. "Thanks Mark, I needed to hear that." Roger got up and walked back into his room. Mark picked up his pencil again and scribbled something in the notebook, then sang it softly.

"_And if _he_ had the chance to do it over again, _

_I bet he wouldn't change _her_, but change _himself_ if he could."_


End file.
